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Tex
Freelancer Texashttp://rvb.roosterteeth.com/forum/viewTopic.php?id=2214533 is a main character in Red vs. Blue. She is voiced by Burnie Burns in her initial appearance, and Kathleen Zuelch thereafter. Of the eight main characters, Tex was the last to appear, not debuting until Episode 10. Though she is associated with the Blue Team, she is not an official member, but rather a mercenary paid to help them. Her back story and previous affiliation with fellow Blue Team member Church are key elements in the plot. Her common nickname is Tex; according to Church, this is because she is from Texas, and her freelancer codename mirrors this. With her Special Operations training, she is the most competently lethal member of the Blood Gulch cast, with the possible exception of Sheila (who is literally a tank). Role in Plot Some time before the events of Red vs. Blue, Tex was part of an experimental program that implanted artificial intelligence (AI) constructs into the suits of soldiers to enhance military performance. Other known members of this unit are Wyoming, Washington, and York. According to Tex, everyone in the unit was codenamed after one of the 49 then-remaining US states (Florida no longer exists). Her Freelancer code name is Texas (although stating it was Nevada in a sarcastic response to a stupid question ). She is also Church's ex-girlfriend, and were close to being married once, but Tex's unfaithfulness and overall attitude ruined that. It is also apparent that she has known Church since at least high school. In her missions, she uses a voice distorter to make her voice sound like a man's. Tex first appears in Church's flashback about how she killed all of the Blues on Sidewinder (except for him). When she appears at Blue Base, she terrifies Tucker and Caboose, while using the latter as a target. During her assault on Red Base, she sticks a plasma grenade to Donut, and manages to knock out Grif (While Simmons faints), but is cornered by Sarge and Lopez, the former uses the butt of his shotgun to knock her out, thus damaging her voice distorter. The Reds are very surprised to find out they were almost defeated by a girl. Church's ghost and the other two Blues, Tucker and Caboose, are then forced to break her out, at which point Church reveals that Tex is his former girlfriend. In exchange for breaking her out, she agrees to aid them for the duration of their time in Blood Gulch. As she repairs Sheila to attack the Reds, Church and the other Blues make a plan to keep her there to remove the AI from her, but when she completes the repairs and begins her attack. It isn't long, however, before she is killed by the Red Team rookie, Donut, who threw a plasma grenade a quarterway across the canyon in revenge for her previously injuring him. Before she dies, she tells Church the AI is gone. In the miniseries that was focused on Tex, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, it is revealed that any bad AIs were to be removed. However, Tex's AI, O'Malley, resisted removal and Tex, with O'Malley still in her system, escaped the facility. Unlike Church, she does not reappear immediately after her death. Season Two begins three months after her death, and she does not appear until halfway through. When she does, she reveals that O'Malley has jumped into Caboose, and she is now driven by an urge to destroy him. To do this, she reasons that forcing him out of Caboose's Mind while everyone in the canyon has their radios off will eliminate him. She enlists Church's aid in driving O'Malley from Caboose's head and sends Tucker to turn off the radios of the Reds, but their plan fails after everyone forgets about a medic named Doc, who was previously abandoned by both teams and knew nothing of the events taking place. Doc then becomes the unwilling host of O'Malley. After forcing the AI out of Caboose's head, Tex disappears until the end of the season, when she possesses the body of a robot built by Sarge as the condition of a surrender. Throughout Season Three, she again devotes herself to eliminating O'Malley, while at the same time protecting Tucker from Wyoming, whom O'Malley has hired. Even when propelled into the future, she is driven to destroy the AI. In season 4, when the Blue Team is blackmailed into aiding Crunchbite on his own quest, she joins his group in the hopes of gaining Tucker's sword as a reward. However, when the team finds an alien ship which Tex declares as her own, it is shot down by Wyoming, and Tex pursues him in a fury. This is followed up in Out of Mind, where she still pursues him, again to find O'Malley and destroy him. She follows him to O'Malley's fortress and, aided by York, a former infiltration specialist, breaks in, only to find O'Malley absent and Wyoming, with two others, lying in wait. The two foot soldiers are quickly dispatched, but York is killed by Wyoming. Tex then corners Wyoming (with help from York's then-fading AI Delta) to find out details of where O'Malley has gone and who he has jumped into. Tex makes an appearance in Episode 86. Sneaking up behind the Blue Team and launching an attack on them as she isn't sure who exactly O'Malley infected. The Blues manage to convince her that they are aware of the situation, but Tex ends up becoming enraged once more when she realizes that the Blues have a new female recruit. Sometime thereafter, Tex - along with Church and Tucker - stage an offensive on the Red Team's base after being ordered by Vic Jr. to do so. After taking a non-lethal shot (to her ass, ) from Tucker (Bow chicka Bow wow) using Church's sniper rifle (and mistakenly beating up Church in the process), the three capture the empty base. Tex is then radioed by Caboose with information regarding O'Malley's current whereabouts. According to Caboose, the AI had jumped into "the Blue leader," whom Tex mistakes for Church, and holds him at gunpoint. He explains that he was never officially promoted to the position after Captain Butch Flowers' death. She later planned to work with O'Malley to win the war by controlling Junior and the aliens, but she was presumed dead after Andy detonated and their ship crashed in Valhalla. Nothing else about her is certain. During Reconstruction, it is revealed that Church is actually an AI and that ghosts don't exist. Additionally, Tex took over people's bodies like Church and O'Malley did, both of whom are AIs. Therefore, there is a logical possibility that Tex may be an AI of some sort, which might be linked to why Washington stated that the Director liked her specially, although that could just be because the Director had feelings for her, as the Alpha AI did. This is backed up by the possibility that Tex is based off of the mind of woman that the Director cared deeply for which woud explain why Tex and Church have memories of eachother from their non-existant youth. During the Recreation Trailer, she is seen next to Church, who was lamenting the fact that he was dead and there was no one to remember him but Caboose. Tex appears to be less mean here, even consoling. She was seen in Revelation in a memory flash by Epsilon-Church watching him as he attempts to preach at the funeral. Epsilon also talked about a girl before passing out in Revelation. It is later revealed that he was talking about Tex. Tex reappears in Chapter 9 of Revelation, after Epsilon-Church discovers an underground auxiliary project freelancer base. In a room only allowed access to by the Director was a small, human sized chamber, that Epsilon opens at the end of Chapter 8. Towards the end of Chapter 9, Tex ominously busts down the steel door, making an amazing most anticipated return to the series. In Chapter 10, she defeats a team of Tucker, Simmons, Grif and Sarge (nearly destroying Grif's testcles in the process), before being challenged by Epsilon-Church, who has now taken a new body from the room Epsilon-Church awoke Tex from, in which there were many spare bodies. Tex easily defeats Epsilon-Church by beating him with his previous body, however Caboose activates the Armor Lock on Tex's armor, restraining her. This lockdown protocol also affects everyone else in the room except Caboose because he is wearing the Mark V helmet, which does not have that function installed. Church later had a debate with Tucker and the Reds about letting her free from armor lock, resulting in Tucker saying she is meaner than his (non-existent) ex-wife. Church enters Tex's body and he and Tex come to an agreement to let her out as long as she doesn't beat anyone up, however she says that she will hit Tucker for his ex-wife crack. Church agrees and asks F.I.L.S.S. to turn off armor lock for all units while assuring the others that she will be fine. This freed Tex, who proceeded to hit Tucker in the face for his ex-wife crack, prompting Church to mention that he forgot to mention something. Afterward, Tex catches up on what she's missed since she was last active, which turns out not to be as much as she was expecting. However, she still wants to know more, especially any information in regards to who she really is. Epsilon-Church agrees to provide her "Director level" access to Sheila's files for this reason. She attempts to find the location of Freelancer Headquarters, but quickly discovers that the group had destroyed it during the events of Reconstruction, much to her annoyance. She then enlists Simmons's help in eliciting more information from Sheila, although the A.I. proves to be difficult to interrogate (as much of the information is restricted to the Director only). When Epsilon-Church, posing as the director accesses the files however, it is shown that the Counceller calls Tex "a byproduct" which means that she is actually a fragment of Alpha's memory, though not a emotional fragment. Nonetheless, she manages to find information about a Freelancer base that piques her interest, and informs the group of her departure. Church, however, refuses to let her go alone. She allows him to, musing that he could be of some use once they arrive. At this Freelancer base, Tex makes quick work of the guards there. They then enter the facility, at which point she tells Church that this is where they had once kept Alpha, and that they had both been here before. Evidently, she was the one who had led a group of rogue freelancers to rescue the Alpha, refusing to let the A.I. suffer at the hands of the project's continued experiments, and revealed that the Director was using other AI's, including Gamma and Omega, to break down the Alpha even more. However, she had failed, having arrived too late. The Alpha's mental state had deteriorated past the breaking point, and no longer even able to recognize Tex. In a defeated tone, she confesses to Church the belief that the fault all lied with her. After searching the facility, Tex decides that the elusive Director will have the answers she needs. Tex believes that the whereabouts of the Director are known by Agent Washington and the Meta. To summon them, Tex shoots Epsilon in the foot, which triggers his recovery beacon. When Epsilon says that he could've helped her, she claims that he can't even help himself, which is the reason why he made her. Relationships Even though Church states that she has always been "a rotten bitch" even without O'Malley's influence, and she does often insult Church, Tex is somewhat tolerant of the rest of the Blood Gulch cast and their various eccentricities, although Episode 56 suggests that she has a habit of punching them in the head while they sleep. When she first appeared, her presence terrified Tucker and Caboose, but they have since come to regard her as one of the group, and she has referred to Tucker at least as her friend. Tucker has even gone as far as to hit on her like he supposedly does with other girls, though this usually does nothing more than invoke her to hit him. When irritated, however, she will put the offender at risk- when the Blues were searching for the Alien early in Season 4, unsure if it was hostile, she put Tucker at the forefront for making a sex joke followed up by his catchphrase, which Tex finds annoying. Her most prominent relationship is that with Church. The pair share a love-hate relationship by insulting each other on occasion, yet are constantly aiding each other and dealing with their teammates together. Church apparently still harbors romantic feelings for her as he refers to her as his girlfriend in Episode 33 and Episode 77, even though he has previously claimed she is not a faithful girlfriend; he claims she used to steal money from his wallet and sleep with other men. It seems that Tex also still has feelings for Church, on one of her character profiles on the list of what she likes Church is the only thing on it; he also shows up on the dislikes part of her profile. Additionally, during the events of Revelation, she does not dispute Church calling her his girlfriend. According to character profiles on the DVDs, it was Tex's influence that led Church to join the armed forces. When Sister joined the team Tex became angry (and perhaps a little jealous) that the others had gotten a new girl while she was only gone a few weeks. Later Tex took Sister aside and told her that even though the others in Blue Team were idiots and jerks that they were her idiots and jerks and that if she tried to become more popular than her Tex would talk about Sister behind her back and turn everyone against her, though at the time Sister seemed to take this as just girl talk. One of the most telling parts of Tex relationship with the rest of her team is in the 100th episode of the series when she and O'Malley talk in Caboose's head in order to talk about O'Malley's plan to use Junior to win the war. Tex asks him that she had his word that none of them would be hurt, possibly speaking about the others in Blue Team. And finally her last line in the series is when Church tells her to not work with O'Malley she says in a oddly gentle voice, "Goodbye." In the Recreation trailer Tex was seen talking with Church, convincing him that there was a way to bring them back from the dead. She seems to have patched up her relationship with Church to an astonishing degree, with Church going so far as to thank her for her support, albeit a sarcasm-laced thanks. In Revelation, she seems to hate Grif's balls, finding various opportunities to hit them. Burnie Burns made a blog entry explaining why she did so. Apparently she found out about how Grif kicked Epsilon (in chapter 5 of Revelation) and was delivering "Karma" to Grif http://redvsblue.com/blog/viewEntry.php?id=2583352. It is possible that Tex is a fragement of the Alpha AI (The memory of the woman in the directors life, that he lost early on), although she may just be an entirely different AI. Themes Attitude The fact that Tex is generally regarded as mean is played on at various times throughout the series. To cement the issue early on, Tucker asks if, without O'Malley (whose name was unknown at the time), she is just a "sweet, down-home girl", and Church replies that she "was always a rotten bitch" but after becoming a Freelancer is more like "a rotten bitch with cybernetic enchancements". She does not hesitate to do any task, regardless of how brutal it may be, as long as it benefits her. She is the only one who does not regard herself as mean, explaining to Tucker in Season 1, "I wouldn't say I'm mean, just that I'm paid to do mean things". When Tucker presses the issue by saying she enjoys it, she brushes it off, claiming it's important to enjoy what one does. The Blues, having gotten used to her, touch on her mean disposition less and less recently, though it is still evident to them on occasion. The Reds, however, refer to her as "that mean chick from the Blue Team" when she's not around, and the Blue team has admitted to calling her "Bitch-pants McCrabby" except in the case of Caboose who justifies himself by saying that he just calls her "Mrs. McCrabby". Even the AI program touches on her aggressiveness; when she narrates her flashback to the event in "Out of Mind", she claims that the AIs were designed to make the subjects faster or stronger, or in Tex's case, "just plain meaner". By Recreation, though, she seems to have greatly mellowed out, perhaps as a result of her "death".However, in Revelation, she seems to have relapsed into her strongly aggresive attitude. Payment As a freelancer, she will jump at any task if the price is right, no matter how simplistic the task may be or how small the cost (she was eager to tear off Grif's arm when Tucker offered her 10 dollars to do so). Not all of her payments have to be monetary; Tucker explains to the Reds, during their truce, that she will exchange favors instead of money, as she did for the Blues in Season One. However, money is her primary motivation to get tasks done. When the Alien's team depart the fortress, Church and Tex remain behind, until Church explains that quests usually result in a reward of some kind, at which point he turns around and finds her gone. Church then says to himself, "I really should have seen that coming..." When she catches up to the team, she strikes a bargain with the Alien, agreeing to aid him in exchange for the quest's reward; he promises her Tucker's sword, which she had previously coveted. She agrees to this and joins the team. Soon after, however, it is revealed that the Alien has not been entirely honest, as it becomes apparent that the sword is primarily a key, to Tex's chagrin. Moreover, the Alien takes possession of an aircraft which no one else was informed of, and Tex decides that, because of their deal, the ship is, by right, hers. When this, too, is deprived of her, thanks to a rocket from Wyoming, she flies into a rage and pursues him. Sexuality It is obvious that Tex is straight as Church has said before, that he and Tex were going to get married but indications show that she wasn't ready to commit as he said in one episode that she was always running off with other men or stealing money from him during the relationship. Despite this, in Chapter 14 of Revelation, after Tex said that Sister was easy, Tucker appeared and said "How do you know she was easy, Tex? You know what? Nevermind. Don't tell me. It's better in my head." Jokes about her gender were made often by Andy the Bomb, such as "Hey, Tex! I bet you haven't had your hands on a ball this big since your morning scratch!" or "Hey, C'mon! Its just a joke between the two of us guys right?". Tucker also made a similar joke in episode 10 of Revelation as he was being held by the throat by her, Tex had possession of Tucker's sword, but it deactivated since the sword only works for Tucker, so Tucker says "What's the matter Tex? Having trouble keeping it up? Don't Worry it happens to everyone, well not me but..." then Tex proceeded to beat Tucker repeatedly off screen. It can be implied that Tex is attractive as Tucker repeatedly makes jokes about her in a sexual manner, though it could be that at this time, she was the only female in the group thus making her an easy target for Tucker's signature 'Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow' jokes. ( And Tucker makes these jokes about everyone) Inconsistencies *In the song played at the end of episode 33, the lyrics state that Tex's name is Beth. This is non-canon as her name has been stated later in the series by Rooster Teeth as being Alison. **"Have you heard the story of a girl named Beth, now known as Tex? Her life's tale is a bloody trail and her name fits like a glove. Her daddy sighed as she slammed the door, she'd said to him, I'm Beth no more, my life's dream is to kill for green, but first I'll join the corps. Her daddy said, you're just a girl, what makes you think that you won't sink? My name is Tex and like a hex, my playground is the world." *There was much debate over Tex's codename being either Nevada or Texas, due to Tex initially declaring herself to being Agent Nevada being contradicted numerous times later in the series by other Freelancers. In the sponsor-only forum on the Rooster Teeth site, it was stated that, *In the beginning of the series Tex was able to flip Sheila over so she was back on her tracks. Yet later, when Red Team and Blue Team assaulted O’Malley’s base she was unable to lift the bomb (Andy), whereas Caboose was able to do so. This may be the case because at this point, Tex was in possession of a robot body devised by Sarge- it is possible that Sarge designed Tex's new body to be physically weaker in order to give the Reds an advantage in combat against her (or just another case of Sarge's incompitance when it comes to robotics as shown by Lopez). In episode 10 of Revelation she seems to have regained her incredible strength, catching and subsequently tossing a very large cargo container filled with medical supplies at the Reds. *Another Possibility for why Tex could flip Sheila in season 1 is that she was in possession of Omega at the time, who was responsible for running some of her equipment, possibly her super strength. This could also be why the Meta was able to perform such ridiculous feats of strength once having acquired it (such as lifting a Warthog and hurling it at Grif along with a whole lot of other objects, including multiple containers and a comm tower). However, in Revelation, she manages to punch through metal, hold up a several-ton crate, and basically punch Grif, Tucker, Sarge, and Simmons so hard they go flying. The body Tex was in at the time, though, was a Project Freelancer-built body, as opposed to the robotic body constructed by Sarge which she had previously used, which could resolve the otherwise inexplicable issue of her strength. *Another explanation for her varying strength is that the original mechanical body she had in season 1 may have been designed for combat and therefore had strength equivalent to that of a Spartan II. Once Tex was given a replacement body (Fransisco Montague Zanzibar) she lost her strength because that mechanical body was one of the many "Church robots" just painted black and those robot bodies were not necessarily meant for combat, but merely to hide the Alpha from the Freelancers. In Revelation, Tex may be using a body of the same design as her original from season 1 or even the very same body recovered from Blood Gulch since, the logic behind this is the fact that Tex's body had been stored in a metal box and was referred to as the Director's "secret project". *When Tex was alive, her armor gave her the ability to turn invisible. Yet when Sarge builds her a new robot body she still has the ability as shown when attacking the Zealots while trying to help the alien on its "sacred quest". She also had this ability when fighting Wyoming, and trying to stealthily take him out. It is possible that she made sure to recover the upgrade sometime after her death, or that Church might have taken it, then later given it back to her. It is also possible, however unlikely that when Sarge was building her a new body he grabbed the the invisibility part from her old armor and put it in her new one. She does not have this ability from Reconstruction and after because the Meta had taken her cloaking. *The Tex that appears in Revelation may not be the same Tex that appeared in eariler seasons, similar to how Epsilon is not the same Church. This can be supported by how Tex refered to Tucker as 'The guy with the sword', as opposed to his name, like how Epsilon had none of the first Church's memories, yet the same basic pesonailty. However this theory is countered by the fact that Tex remembers the time she broke out of command (which is her explanation for why she "went nuts" when Church found her) and in addition to that, in season 4, Tex stated that "I don't remember your names most of the time!" References Category: Characters Category:Freelancer Category: Blue Team